Philadelphia 76ers

Philadelphia 76ers

Can the Chicago Bears Stay Healthy? Fan’s Look (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

Rest assured, I do not believe I, or anyone, can give an adequate answer to the question the title of this article asks. What the question is meant to bring to light is the fact that our beloved Chicago teams have had a pretty rough year on the injury front. We aren’t talking about bench warmers going down either. …

Paul Pierce dunks early, attacks often to set pace in Celtics’ Game 3 win (VIDEOS) (Ball Don’t Lie)

After the combination of a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee and the defensive efforts of the Philadelphia 76ers (and primarily Andre Iguodala) had him looking less than his best in the first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Paul Pierce came into Wednesday night’s Game 3 bent on attacking. He’d managed just 20 field-goal attempts through two games against Philly after averaging better than 16 a night in Boston’s six-game opening-round win over the Atlanta Hawks, and the Celtics’ captain was determined to ratchet that number up with the series tied at one game apiece.
“I just wanted to be aggressive, regardless,” Pierce told reporters (including Frank Dell’Apa of the Boston Globe ) after the game. “Everything I do was going to be aggressive, and that’s it. When I’m getting limited to nine shots in a game, that’s not me.”
Exploding for dunks on consecutive possessions isn’t really Pierce, either, or at least, it isn’t anymore — he threw it down just 20 times in nearly 2,100 minutes during the regular season, according to CBSSports.com’s Dunk-O-Meter — but late in the first quarter, that’s precisely what happened.

Thunder strike late to beat Lakers, Celtics win (Reuters)

(Reuters) – The Oklahoma City Thunder scored nine unanswered points in the final two minutes to edge the Los Angeles Lakers 77-75 on Wednesday and seize a 2-0 lead in their second-round playoff series. There was no late drama in the Eastern Conference, where the Boston Celtics trounced the Philadelphia 76ers 107-91 to move ahead 2-1 in their best-of-seven series. Although the 76ers lost by a bigger margin, it will be the Lakers who will probably be suffering more due to the manner of their loss. …

Behind the Box Score, where the Lakers absolutely melted down the stretch (Ball Don’t Lie)

Oklahoma City Thunder 77, Los Angeles Lakers 75 (Thunder lead series, 2-0)
The Oklahoma City Thunder were down seven points in this contest with two minutes left to play, with just 68 points to their credit. And though we’ve seen comebacks that overcome that differential in even shorter amounts of time, given Los Angeles’ defensive dominance for the first 46 minutes of the contest, who in their right mind thought the Thunder could outscore the Lakers by eight points over that final term, considering that they had to essentially pitch a shutout because of the waning seconds?
Well, the Thunder managed one of the two. They pitched the shutout, but they didn’t outscore Los Angeles by eight in the final two minutes. They outscored ‘em by nine. The Thunder are championship-worthy, and the Lakers have their problems, but it’s OK to be shocked at the way Los Angeles frittered away this contest.

NBA Playoff Capsules (The Associated Press)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Kevin Durant scored 22 points and rattled in the go-ahead basket on a baseline runner with 18 seconds left, and the Oklahoma City Thunder scored the final nine points to rally for a 77-75 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals Wednesday night.

Celtics rout 76ers to seize series lead (AFP)

Kevin Garnett scored 27 points while Paul Pierce added 24 and Rajon Rondo had 23 as Boston cruised past Philadelphia 107-91 to grab the lead in their NBA playoff series.

Sixers can’t match Celtics’ determination (The SportsXchange)

After splitting a pair of one-point games with the Celtics in Boston, the Philadelphia 76ers liked their chances in Game 3. They were coming home knowing they could have easily won both in Beantown.